Online class ended yesterday and I must say I’m a little sad. It was amazing how a community can develop over the Internet. I had never really met people in a course without seeing them and being with them. This experience truly made me realize how important a community is to learning. It’s so nice to see when students in my classes talk to each other and become friends, but to have this happen on the Net–it’s a totally different thing (or is it?). I guess where you have communication (textual, video and blog) you can develop a social network and from this network you can learn. I look forward to keeping in touch with a few people from class, either through blog, Facebook, and now Linkedin.
Unfortunately, I was not able to watch most of my class presentation yesterday because my brother was in town. Today I caught up on the archives and was really impressed. I felt bad that I couldn’t contribute and maybe because of that will create courses that are syncroneous (don’t know how to spell it). I liked Anne’s because it was organized and easy to follow. Russell’s presentation was great because it asked a lot of questions and made you think. As for Vibha’s, I think I’d need to be in the corporate world to understand it more, but I think for those who are it was excellent.
Today I received a number of comments on my blog. I learned a great deal from the dialogue. I look forward to doing more interactive blogging.
After reading the article, “Social Media for Adult Online Learners and Educators”, I became more aware of the importance of blogging. I didn’t realize that something so social as “Facebook” could send information between classmates. Adults have more responsibilities and need technology that is fast and efficient. By communicating about ideas on the blog they can learn more.
This blog entry relates to the reading for Week 6 in my Principles for Online Education Course at NYU. The article start out by addressing the need for more structure and support from the standard classroom environment where the teacher can use enthusiasm to get by. I personally disagree with this part as I teach in a traditional environment and find that being enthusiastic alone doesn’t work. Feedback from students is crucial in order to know if they understand not only the material but the technology as it can be challenging at times. The article suggests that new instructors see how assessments are done in other courses. Creating an online teaching journal is an excellent way to see one’s own teaching progress. Getting feedback throughout the course is important too, in the beginning, midterm and end. Outside entities from the district can be brought in to help you with this. Even an online suggestion box that is anonymous can be helpful. The “One-Minute-Threads” asks students to write three things in one minute such as their feelings towards the class in regards to what the understood and did not as well as any other comment. On line polling is another way to elicit responses to questions. Have a focus group where students meet together either virtually or in person to discuss the course or any topic. A mid semester assessment on the student’s part can be done to see what and how they are learning. Even more succinct is the one sentence reaction line where students write about their attitude towards the class. Have students write their own test questions from which a few will be chosen. It is important to respond to students quickly and succinctly. Constructive comments are important as they get the students engaged in learning their work. In order to get students interested in the work allow them to clarify your knowledge and background in the subject. Most important, it is necessary to show that you are learning too. Online courses should have clear deadlines and the instructor should make every effort to “be there” albeit virtually for the students. A final assessment should be made as well.
After reading this article I have found that there is much to learn in the facilitation of the online course. I look forward to using some of these techniques and transitioning from teaching in a more traditional setting to the online learning space.
This morning I checked out Monster.com for careers in online work. Now that I am attaining this new skill, I thought it would be interesting to see what is out there. It looks like the University of Phoenix and DeVry ? University both have openings for adjuncts in the Humanities. I may pursue them for summer work, especially after I finish another course. I do want to take the corporate training certificate to see if I could land something more lucrative there. Anyway, its good to learn new things.
My experience with blogs has been short and thankfully sweet. I have been taking a course in online education and one of our assignments was to create a blog, comment on coursework as well as other students’ blogs. During the second week I managed to create a blog, bonblog, on eblogger. I was so excited about the name of my blog. Here it was MY own blog, Bonnie’s blog, or bonblog for short. When it popped up on my screen though, I didn’t like the design or the color. Worst of all, I couldn’t enter it to write. How disappointing. In order to hide my errors, I started  blogging on the course blog, eventhough that was not the assignment. Only after realizing that my grade was dipping did I attempt to set up another blog. This time I went with WordPress and got some help from the people at my school to make an interesting one. Now I had the uwsderblog at wordpress. com. It meant that I was a Manhattanite Upper West Sider. So cool. I found a great screen with a skyline and light paisley all around. I was psyched. Still, it was important to go over the blogs and comments on my fellow classmates in order to get the idea of blogging. My instructor, Jeffrey, was super helpful in explaining what a Wiki was and it made the whole blog thing come together. Now I plan to do this more regularly and share more info, both personal and work related. I hope everyone can have a positive experience with this form of technology.
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